Paradise

Dinner at Sri Wangsa restaurant in Gong Badak. The Ikan Tiga Rasa there is exquisite. Definitely one of the better restaurants in Kuala Terengganu.

The new "crystal" mosque as viewed across the river from Pulau Duyong. The weather at that time was hot, but superb for photography as the cloud formations were interesting and the skies were blue.

Picture showing the construction work still going on in Pulau Duyong. I really wonder what they're building, perhaps a bridge to get across.

A broken jetty (?) across the crystal mosque to show how they are rebuilding parts of Pulau Duyong to make it the new tourist attraction area. I took pictures here with Sarah, and both of us tried to get closer to the river. We were shocked to discover that we were sinking into the muddy bank. Dangerous! According to my father, it is common for people to just disappear from river banks due to the very porous mud.

Construction worker framed by wood work with crystal mosque in background.

Crystal mosque and another mosque as part of the sixty something miniature mosques they are building along this area. Can't wait to see the finished project before next year.

Still in Pulau Duyong, but across to the opposite side is the area they developed for the Monsoon cup.

Rows of part glass, part wood chalets very near to the beach. They are rumours that the accommodation here is 5-7 stars. Below are more pictures of the chalets & the urm, "balai something". I used a circular polariser for the following pictures and it really brought out the colours, especially of the sky.




View from across the chalets; coconut tree, sand, beach and lots of water.

Across is a fisherman village

The Monsoon Cup area as seen from the beach; above without a circular polarizer and below, with.

Really nice colours with the circular polarizer eh?

Now a picture of the fisherman village and their boats.

Moving further along the beach, I could see bigger houses and mansions.


Even further along, one could see the town of Kuala Terengganu itself.

A wider angled view of the beach and Kuala Terengganu.

I wonder why a British flag is up here?


Above are variations of pictures of the boats you could ride to go around Pulau Duyong, perhaps even to Kuala Terengganu.

The Sailing Circuit for the Monsoon Cup. Bot Penambang framed against the sign & the pillars.

Jetty for the tourist boats. A few of the boats are lined along the jetty.

The Malaysian Circuit Jetty stretched for around 100-200 metres.


Various racing boats could be seen lined along the jetty. Look to the left of the picture - that red boat is the Ambulance/Fireman (huh? at sea??) and Emergency rescue boat.

The officers getting out of their rescue boat - I managed to get their permission for this close up shot of one officer getting off the boat and tying it up to the jetty.

When one has a huge camera, one has the power to direct people :)

Still in Pulau Duyong, moving out of the Monsoon Cup Jetty. Above are probably fishing boats.

A viewing & rest area. One could get a good view of the ?lagoon from here.

Boats both huge and small, floating & beached.

That's the end of my Pulau Duyong series. We headed back towards home, but along the way we stopped at the "Air Gelas Besar" restaurant. For you guys who don't know, the "Air Gelas Besar" restaurant used to be very popular around 5-7 years ago. They served really delicious drinks made by blending fresh fruits and (possibly) lots of sugar. The result is a thick, sweet and very rich juice sold for less than RM3 (very good value, especially with the amount of fresh fruit they use). Of course, all sorts of fruits were available, from mangoes to soursop, even durian and kiwi fruit. The restaurant became so popular that even a few famous artists visited, and soon the "air gelas besar" juices were copied and sold in shops through out Terengganu at first and the whole of Malaysia, eventually.

Unfortunately, when Mama Sarah and I went to the Air Gelas Besar restaurant, it was closed due to "refurbishment" (only for 1-2 days according to the owner). However, both Mama Sarah and I had heard of hygiene issues with the restaurant leading to its repeated closure - only a rumour though!


So instead of the Air Gelas Besar restaurant, we settled to a Seafood "restaurant" by the beach, very near the new airport. I was quite surprised by the fact that I ordered Squidballs (i.e. squid fishballs), banana fritters, banana dumplings, keropok lekor, coconut drink in a glass, coconut drink in a coconut, two mugs of iced milo and it costed me just around RM10!!! I hope the owner of the restaurant doesn't read my blog though and start increasing prices. But honestly, what a great price for a restaurant near the beach and fresh seafood eh?



Amar as usual had to have his portable DVD player and was slowly eating his food while his eyes were transfixed to the mini screen (watching Finding Nemo - how appropriate in a seafood restaurant! We probably should have teached him; keropok lekor = nemo)

Here I was gleefully opening my coconut and soon taking sips of the delicious drink while scooping the coconut jelly (I didn't share the fruit with others, how cruel and greedy of me).

After we were satisfied with feeding ourselves, we crossed the small road to the beach. Mama Sarah took over the digital SLR and thus did all the picture-making.

Sarah building a sand-mound while Amar became the godzilla.

I was upset as Amar sprinkled sand into my SLR while I was changing lenses! grrr. Thank goodness, so far no visible harm done.

"You scratch my back, I scratch yours", somehow looking at the above picture reminds me of a group of apes picking ticks from each others' back, anyone agrees?

Sarah found a freshly dead fish near the water.

She threw it back to the sea hoping the fish would "just keep swimming".

A group of children foraging for seashells.

Amar was scared of the water.

A family enjoying an outing by the beach. An island in the background.

Lastly, a picture taken just before we went home - of Sarah running around in undies after removing her sand-laden pants. A picture for her to treasure in later years :)

Sorry for these quick updates. It's 3:33 in the morning, and tomorrow morning we're flying back to Shah Alam. I have to make full use of the internet while I have it.